Back
| Semester | fall semester 2024 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Lisa Marie Borrelli (lisamarie.borrelli@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This seminar takes a closer look at the material and the role of infrastructures, particularly linking their effects to migration governance. The seminar will start off with general concepts and theories on infrastructure and materialism to introduce an understanding on their role, agency, abilities, and possibilities to influence everyday interactions. In doing so the seminar will engage with concepts of socio-materiality (Hultin, 2019), actor-network theory (Latour, 2005), assemblage theory (Müller, 2015), and feminist materialism (Bennett, 2010), all of which draw attention to the intricate nature of human and non-human interactions. We then delve deeper into the role of infrastructure and materiality in migration governance. The role of space and infrastructure has been discussed across a broad swath of migration-studies scholarship, with particular attention being paid to legal and carceral geographies and their articulation of the intricate relation between law and space (Könönen, 2020; Pickering, 2014; Hiemstra, 2013); research has highlighted, for instance, how detention facilities are often located in peripheral spaces where people can more easily “vanish” (Chak, 2017). By a similar token, the study of infrastructure, including both material spaces and digital technologies, has gained momentum within border and deportation studies (Dijstelbloem, 2021; Walters, 2017). Scholars have for example shown how infrastructure can facilitate noncitizens’ resistance to border controls (Amelung et al., 2020). Spaces of immigration enforcement must be understood as sites of negotiation, resistance, violence, and state power (Walters, 2016). We will study these in context of border arrivals and the increasingly role of technologies, in context of asylum and detention infrastructure, as well as in relation to deportation. |
| Learning objectives | Students will learn about multidimensional perspectives on materiality and infrastructure based on critical (feminist) materialism, postcolonial theories, and historical trajectories of infrastructures. This will be a general base to delve deeper into migration infrastructure and offer the possibilities to engage with more recent examples and spaces of control. Due to the block course structure, an in-depth and interactive engagement will be possible, allowing for diverse forms of teaching. This will thus offer students to acquire the abilities to critically reflect prior and recent developments, connect them to theoretical concepts and develop an informed position on material and infrastructural studies. Participants will be able to use these theories to extrapolate the research angle on further topics within migration studies, but also within broader fields. Due to the participatory planning of the seminar, students will learn to critically position themselves to the read literature and learn how to summarise and discuss the literature and examples. They will finally also be able to formulate such positioning in a closing conference, where they will present a topic and receive critical feedback from invited guests. |
| Bibliography | Some extracts of the literature list that will be discussed during the seminar: / Hier einige Auszüge der Literatur, welche im Seminar diskutiert werden wird: Amelung, N., Gianolla, C., Solovova, O., and Sousa Ribeiro, J.: Technologies, infrastructures and migrations: material citizenship politics, Citizenship Stud., 24, 587–606, https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2020.1784636, 2020. Bennett, J.: Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Duke University Press, Durham, 200 pp., ISBN 978-0-8223-4633-3, 2010. Chak, T.: Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention, AD ASTRA COMIX, 132 pp., ISBN 978-0-9940507-6-2, 2017. Dijstelbloem, H.: Borders as Infrastructure: The Technopolitics of Border Control, Infrastructures series, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 288 pp., ISBN 9780262542883, 2021. Hiemstra, N.: ‘You Don’t Even Know Where You Are’: Chaotic Geographies of US Migrant Detention and Deportation, in: Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Migrant Detention, edited by: Moran, D., Gill, N., and Conlon, D., Ashgate, Bristol, 57–75, ISBN 9781138249349, 2013. Hultin, L.: On becoming a sociomaterial researcher: Exploring epistemological practices grounded in a relational, performative ontology, Inform. Organiz., 29, 91–104, https ://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2019.04.004, 2019. Könönen, J.: Legal geographies of irregular migration: An outlook on immigration detention, Popul. Space Place, 26, 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2340, 2020. Latour, B.: Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor- Network-Theory, in: Clarendon lectures in management studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 320 pp., ISBN 9780199256051, 2005. Müller, M.: Assemblages and Actor-networks: Rethinking Socio-material Power, Politics and Space: Assemblages and Actor-networks, Geogr. Compass, 9, 27–41, https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12192, 2015. Pickering, S.: Floating carceral spaces: Border enforcement and gender on the high seas, Punish. Soc., 16, 187–205, https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474513517018, 2014. Walters, W.: The Flight of the Deported: Aircraft, Deportation, and Politics, Geopolitics, 21, 435–458, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2015.1089234, 2016. Walters, W.: Aviation as deportation infrastructure: airports, planes, and expulsion, J. Eth. Migrat. Stud., 44, 2796–2817, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1401517, 2017. |
| Comments | This seminar is open for master students. / Dieses Seminar richtet sich an Masterstudierende. |
| Admission requirements | Priority for admission is given to students of the Maste’s programme in Cultural Anthropology and in Changing Societies./ Priorität bei der Zulassung haben Studierende des Masterstudienfachs Kulturanthropologie und des Masterstudiengangs Changing Societies. Wer im Rahmen von Auslandaufenthalten und von Austauschprogrammen in Basel studiert wird unabhängig vom Listenplatz immer aufgenommen. Wer in der ersten Sitzung unentschuldigt fehlt, kann die Lehrveranstaltung nicht besuchen. Pro Lehrveranstaltung mit zwei Semesterwochenstunden sind maximal zwei entschuldigte Absenzen möglich. Siehe Merkblatt zum Umgang mit Absenzen und Sonderregelungen: https://kulturwissenschaft.philhist.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/kulturwissenschaft/Dokumente/Studium/Merkblaetter_allgemein/B_absenzen-sonderregelungen_24-01.pdf |
| Course application | Direkte Anmeldung bei lisamarie.borrelli@unibas.ch; Belegen via services.unibas.ch |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Friday | 10.15-16.00 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Friday 27.09.2024 | 10.15-12.45 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 27.09.2024 | 14.15-16.00 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 04.10.2024 | 09.30-16.00 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum -201 |
| Friday 18.10.2024 | 10.15-12.45 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 18.10.2024 | 14.15-16.00 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 25.10.2024 | 10.15-12.45 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 25.10.2024 | 14.15-16.00 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 01.11.2024 | 10.15-12.45 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 01.11.2024 | 14.15-16.00 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 08.11.2024 | 10.15-12.45 | Alte Universität, Besprechung 003 |
| Modules |
Modul: Research Lab Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology) Modul: Theorien und Methodologien der Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology) Module: Fields: Governance and Politics (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Migration, Mobility and Transnationalism (Master's degree program: Changing Societies: Migration – Conflicts – Resources) Module: The Urban across Disciplines (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) Specialization Module Global Europe: Work, Migration and Society (Master's Studies: European Global Studies) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Regular and active participation. Final presentation and brief literature discussion in online forum. Respect of the deadlines. / Regelmässige und aktive Teilnahme. Abschlusspräsentation und kurze Textdiskussion in Foren. Erbringen der Leistungen im vereinbarten Zeitrahmen. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaft und Europäische Ethnologie |